Led by Vasilena Vassilev (Year 3 Co-Director at SSoA) the studio was based on a critical view of the nature of shopping, its complex ecology, and look to ways to merge the reality of globalisation and the locality of the traditional public market hall. The current system of production and consumption of goods has become an overtly complex system that is energy intensive, often utilizing non-renewable fossil fuel resources for production, and logistics. Furthermore, the ubiquity of shopping and has stripped cities of their urban identity and cultural character. Driven by globalisation and corporate commerce, the marketplace as a typology has begun to disappear in many urban centres. By re-focusing the marketplace back to the city by developing an emphasis on local or ecologically minded production, one can begin to view the building as an ecologically-minded place for civic exchange and community engagement, while driving local commerce, and cultural identity.
The studio began with a group research project investigating the evolution of the marketplace in Sheffield’s Castlegate district, while contextualizing it within larger global trends and precedent studies of culturally diverse marketplaces and halls. The final design comprised of a maker’s marketplace focused on the trade of local and/or fair trade products should promote the responsible consumption of goods and services. In addition to the design of the marketplace, students were challenged to consider the development of spatial and organisational ideas that focus on a holistically minded ecologic and economic operational model. Projects were focused on civic space, systems, and urban identity.
Taught by Michael Pelken at Syracuse University as part of Year 3 Comprehensive Studio.
Air travel is the heaviest carbon producing mode of transportation with significant contributions to the global carbon footprint. With increasing numbers of passengers for mass and personal travel by planes, significant energy savings must be achieved. A new generation of airplanes is offering ecologically friendly solutions by using fuel cell technologies, photovoltaic powered electrical engines and hybrid fuels. Another aspect of air travel is that large infrastructures are required to provide access to the terminal by car travel, another major contributor to the global carbon footprint, or by public mass transportation. The impact on urban planning strategies is significant in a global society, in which more half the human population now lives in urban areas.
The research studio investigated new pocket airport typologies in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, New York. Students were encouraged to develop their own research agenda and apply these new technological advances in aviation as architectural inspiration.
The idea of a living machine is being revisited as part of contemporary research and practice for the integration of ecological systems on site and building scale.
The project brief tests these ideas through the design of an experimental prototype for a residential complex that addresses the following aspects of sustainable planning in response to the Renewable Energy Community concept developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory NREL:
1. Site sustainability (traffic and accessibility, mitigation of the heat island effect, water management, use of local renewable ground sources,
biodiversity)
2. Community development: demographic and social diversity, environmental integrity
3. Water and Energy Efficiency (optimized building orientation and massing, enhanced natural ventilation, use of solar thermal technologies, on site renewable energy generation, hybrid HVAC systems)
4. Construction and operation (materials and recycling strategy, modes of construction and assembly, life cycle assessment, maintenance and
energy management)
5. A future oriented development model that can be understood, marketed and operated based on a demonstrated and comprehensive Holistic
Systems Thinking.
In Spring of 2014, P+ led a research studio at Syracuse University School of Architecture London Program to investigate potentials of infrastructural/architectural hybridity in London. As part of this research, with support from Thames Water, we asked students to imagine the future urban potentials of the Thames Tideway Tunnel — a major piece of infrastructure to support London’s aging Victorian sewer system. Currently, the tunnel is planned to intercept over 20 combined sewer overflow (CSO) sites and re-direct sewage that would otherwise flow into the Thames, to the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works. As a result of this undertaking, some 19 or so sites along the river are marked for redevelopment. We saw this as a fantastic opportunity to introduce new ideas and hybrid programs between archtecture, infrastructure and engineering.
The research aimed for the development of an experimental, sustainable urban 21st Century intervention: a hybrid of infrastructure, public space and architecture that responds to the River Thames. As part of the studio investigations, the work includes newly imagined landscapes, performative architecture, and sustainable infrastructure. The projects bring attention to the possibilities of an integrative urban design for London that are interactive, visually appealing, historically sensitive, and culturally engaging.
Participating Students: M. Bunis, M. Borner, P. Cafferky, L. Chan, D. Ciccinelli, A. Filkoff, J. Huang, X. Liu, W. Tu, J. Reisman, R. Williams, V Zhang
This studio focused on the redevelopment of the Royal Victoria Dock in London. As a long-neglected and historically ignored site, the Royal Victoria Dock is beginning to emerge as an urban zone full of programmatic and architectural potential. The dock as it currently acts as a massive urban void, surrounded by disconnected districts and massive infrastructure.
The proposed urban and architectural designs explore the possibility of not only inhabiting the dock but also reconnecting the existing fragmented fabric while offering unique living and recreational experience. Water, lightness and the act of flotation inform the resulting architecture and suggest the possibilities of an adaptive form of urbanism that moves beyond the traditional ground plane.
Participating Students: Abdulrazzak Alanjari, May Usama Dussadeevutikul, Thorfun Chutchawanjumrut, Alexander Guzman, John Waugh, Christopher Malone, Patrick Dodson, Holly Kang, Sarah Minsley, Rossitza Iovtcheva, Robert Nishigawa
The Ecology of Cities was a seminar course taught in 2009 and 2010. This seminar examined the phenomena of anthropogenic effects on urban ecosystems and the built environment and presented a global overview of various cities and sustainable case studies. Lecturescovered the scientific basis for the study of industrial ecology and systems theory, the history of human development and urbanization, social economic trends and their environmental repercussions, the global footprint, and holistic systems thinking through the examination of case studies and methods of critical and quantitative analysis. Students were encouraged to develop their own research agendas in order to gain an understanding of the intangible network of our societies, in an effort to begin a discourse on effective urban strategies for minimizing the effects on our natural environment.
The final projects in 2010 included a detailed analysis of various urban case studies. The final project in 2009 included a sustainable plan or intervention in the city of Syracuse. An internal publication and exhibition reflected the varied projects.
Vasilena Vassilev has taught first year studio at the University of Reading in the UK and Syracuse University in the US. Past studios have included strategic urban interventions as small scale residential projects.
The featured projects from Syracuse University on this page depict a performance space along NYC’s Highline.
This Year 2 studio was co-taught at De Montfort University with Dr. Yuri Hadi. The project dealt with the topics of infrastructure, micro-power generation, and public space. The brief focused on the design of a hybrid hydroelectic power plant/bathhouse for the City of Leicester.